Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko freed 123 prisoners on Saturday including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava in a deal brokered by an envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump. In return, the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash. Potash is a key component in fertilisers, and the former Soviet state is a leading global producer.

Trump's envoy John Coale told Reuters that around 1,000 remaining political prisoners in Belarus could be released, hopefully in one big group, in the coming months.